The Marchese declined hastily. Another time he would be only too pleased! At present he must make his adieux.
Threading his way through the small room, which was crowding rapidly, he bent over Ellen’s large, white hand.
“Must you leave?” she laughed lazily, “and just as we are going to play Baccarat? What a shame. Give her my love!”
Torrigiani smiled back with well-bred insolence. “I prefer to keep it all myself!”
Outside, MacDougal’s Alley was filled with quite un-Hogarthian motors. The air felt cold and sweet after the heavily perfumed house. And although his hotel was well up in the Fifties, Torrigiani decided to walk.
“Just one more spoonful. There, that’s a good boy!” With a pleased expression, Anne laid the empty cup upon the night table. “Hot milk isn’t so ghastly, after all, is it?”
Alexis shook his head. Upon his lips rode the ecstatic smile of a two-year old whose mother has just returned from the great unknown.
“Nectar,” he whispered, above still-painful breathing.
She raised an admonishing finger. But her smile was compassionate.